pumping—Anthing and Esquimau Joe, I think, with the small pump in the starboard alley-way. I then walked over toward my cabin. Behind the galley I saw Captain Budington—who appeared again to have been drinking—and told him what the engineer said. The trembling wretch stood there apparently oblivious to everything but his own coward thoughts. Then, he threw up his arms and yelled out to “throw every thing on the ice!” Instantly all was confusion, the men seizing every thing indiscriminately, and throwing it overboard. These things had previously been placed upon the deck in anticipation of such a catastrophe; but as the vessel, by its rising and falling motion, was constantly breaking the ice, and as no care was being taken how or where the things were thrown, I got overboard, calling some of the men to help me, and tried to move what I could away from the ship, so things should not all be crushed and lost; and also called out to the men on board to stop throwing things till we could get what was already endangered out of the way. But still much ran under the ship.
It was a terrible night. It was snowing and drifting; the wind was exceedingly heavy, blowing strong from the south-east, and it was fearfully dark, and so bad was the snow and sleet that one could not even look to windward. High seas were striking the ship and the floe, and the air was filled with freezing spray, like hail, so that I could scarcely see the unloaded stuff—whether it was on the ice or in the water. Now and then the full moon cut through the clouds, but for a moment only, enough to show the great bergs bearing down on us, with the current and against the wind.
We worked for three or four hours, I sometimes on the ice and sometimes on the ship. On the ice Hannah was working beside me; and we worked till we could scarcely stand. They were throwing things constantly over to us. Then at last I went aboard—where I found that the engineer’s statement about the leak was a false alarm! I asked Budington “how much water is the vessel making?” and he told me “he feared now that we had been mistaken.” The vessel, it seemed, was mostly sound, but when the ice had nipped her and she had heeled, the little water in the hold was thrown over, and it made a rush, and Schuman thought a new leak had been sprung. Budington and I went below decks to check one more time. Finding she was making no more water, I returned to the ice to try and save the provisions. While we were so engaged, the ice commenced cracking; I warned Budington of it, he meantime calling out to “get every thing back as far as possible from the ship.” We did not know who was on the floe or who on the Polaris; but I knew some of the children were with us, for at that moment I spied a little heap of muskox skins, lying across a widening crack in the ice, and as I pulled them toward me to save them, I saw that there were two or three of Hans’s children rolled up in one of the skins!
Moments later, the ice seemed to explode under our feet, fracturing in many places, and stern ice-anchors broke loose. I saw the steward, John Herron, trying to leap from a pan of ice and grab the ship’s loose hawser, but it swung away from him too fast. “Good-bye, Polaris! ” he called, as the ship broke away in the darkness, and we lost sight of her in a moment.
Much, perhaps most, of the goods were lost in the floe’s breaking, and now some of the men were on separate pieces of ice, all crying out for help. They could scarcely be heard over the storm. I took the “little donkey”—a small scow—and went for them; but the scow was almost instantly swamped. Then I shoved off one of the whaleboats, and took off Herron, Jamka, and Mr Meyer, while Kruger, Lindermann, and the coloured cook took the other whale-boat and helped their companions back; so that we were all on firm ice at last.
We did not dare to move about much after that, for we could not see the size of the floe we were
It was a terrible night. It was snowing and drifting; the wind was exceedingly heavy, blowing strong from the south-east, and it was fearfully dark, and so bad was the snow and sleet that one could not even look to windward. High seas were striking the ship and the floe, and the air was filled with freezing spray, like hail, so that I could scarcely see the unloaded stuff—whether it was on the ice or in the water. Now and then the full moon cut through the clouds, but for a moment only, enough to show the great bergs bearing down on us, with the current and against the wind.
We worked for three or four hours, I sometimes on the ice and sometimes on the ship. On the ice Hannah was working beside me; and we worked till we could scarcely stand. They were throwing things constantly over to us. Then at last I went aboard—where I found that the engineer’s statement about the leak was a false alarm! I asked Budington “how much water is the vessel making?” and he told me “he feared now that we had been mistaken.” The vessel, it seemed, was mostly sound, but when the ice had nipped her and she had heeled, the little water in the hold was thrown over, and it made a rush, and Schuman thought a new leak had been sprung. Budington and I went below decks to check one more time. Finding she was making no more water, I returned to the ice to try and save the provisions. While we were so engaged, the ice commenced cracking; I warned Budington of it, he meantime calling out to “get every thing back as far as possible from the ship.” We did not know who was on the floe or who on the Polaris; but I knew some of the children were with us, for at that moment I spied a little heap of muskox skins, lying across a widening crack in the ice, and as I pulled them toward me to save them, I saw that there were two or three of Hans’s children rolled up in one of the skins!
Moments later, the ice seemed to explode under our feet, fracturing in many places, and stern ice-anchors broke loose. I saw the steward, John Herron, trying to leap from a pan of ice and grab the ship’s loose hawser, but it swung away from him too fast. “Good-bye, Polaris! ” he called, as the ship broke away in the darkness, and we lost sight of her in a moment.
Much, perhaps most, of the goods were lost in the floe’s breaking, and now some of the men were on separate pieces of ice, all crying out for help. They could scarcely be heard over the storm. I took the “little donkey”—a small scow—and went for them; but the scow was almost instantly swamped. Then I shoved off one of the whaleboats, and took off Herron, Jamka, and Mr Meyer, while Kruger, Lindermann, and the coloured cook took the other whale-boat and helped their companions back; so that we were all on firm ice at last.
We did not dare to move about much after that, for we could not see the size of the floe we were
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